Borneo Orangutan Survival Germany
| Borneo Orangutan Survival Germany (BOS) |
|
|---|---|
| legal form | non-profit registered association |
| founding | 2001 |
| Seat | Berlin |
| motto | Primates help primates |
| purpose | Species and nature protection |
| Website | www.orangutan.de |
The association Borneo Orangutan Survival Germany e. V. (BOS Germany) is a politically independent environmental organization in Germany that is committed to the continuation and development of the orangutan populations and the extensive rainforest areas on Borneo that are necessary for this . This is done through financial support as well as advice and evaluation of the BOS Foundation in Indonesia and its projects. The association also educates the public in Germany about the causes of the threat to the rainforest and orangutans, including with didactic material for schools. This mainly concerns the overexploitation of the rainforest through logging and the creation of large, industrially operated plantations - the latter on Borneo primarily for the extraction of palm oil .
Legal form and financing
BOS Germany is a registered non-profit association . Its organs are the annual general meeting, the special members' committee, the honorary board of directors and the advisory board. The seat of the association and the office is Berlin. The association is financed through membership fees and donations, which both support the projects of the BOS Foundation and carry out the work in Germany. Independent of this, individual projects can also be financed through foundation funds and the like, e.g. B. Educational work at selected Berlin schools on resource problems ( paper , palm oil).
Foundation and history
The doctors Dr. Jochen-Peter Collin and Dr. Eberhard Kreikemeier were active in the German-Indonesian Society and collected money to support the BOS Foundation even before BOS Germany was founded. The nature and species protection character of the initiative made an organization outside the more culturally oriented German-Indonesian society seem appropriate, which led to the establishment of BOS Germany in 2001. In the following years the association developed from a small private initiative into a permanent non-governmental organization . In 2004, BOS Germany moved its headquarters from Kiel to Berlin, where it also set up a permanent office.
Transparency and guidelines
Every year the association publishes an activity report and an annual report in which the origin and use of the funds are explained in detail.
In October 2013, BOS Germany became a member of the Transparent Civil Society Initiative .
Funded projects in Indonesia
BOS Germany, along with other international organizations, supports the activities of the BOS Foundation in the field of orangutan and rainforest protection.
Orangutan Rescue
The BOS Foundation operates two rescue and rehabilitation centers for a total of around 700 orangutans (as of mid-2017) in Samboja Lestari (province of East Kalimantan ) and Nyaru Menteng (province of Central Kalimantan near Palangka Raya ) on Borneo . The ways the orangutans get to BOS are different and mostly painful for the animals. Many of them are confiscated from private captivity by the police and the nature conservation authority BKSDA (Balai Konservasi Sumber Daya Alam) and placed in the care of the foundation. Others come to BOS after being apprehended on oil palm plantations or near settlements. These often include orphaned young animals whose mothers have been killed or otherwise perished.
Rehabilitation of orangutans
Rehabilitation is to be understood here as all measures that enable orphaned, sick or injured orangutans to survive independently in the jungle again and to reproduce there. The specific measures depend on the age and state of health of the individual animal.
Only those animals that are too old or too sick to live in the wild are kept in the stations permanently. With all the rest, the goal is to release them back into the wild. Orangutans that come to BOS as adults or older young animals from the wild are relocated to other forest areas as quickly as possible after a health check. They already have the skills necessary for a life in the wilderness.
Orangutans aged three to five years and older, who have at least basic skills for survival in the forest, receive medical care in the stations and support them in their natural behavior. These animals can get used to their natural environment again relatively quickly.
Orphaned young animals of infancy, on the other hand, who would still be completely dependent on their mother, are prepared for a life in their natural habitat in a usually six to seven-year training (corresponding to the care period of six to eight years by the mother under natural conditions) . Necessary skills of the orangutans are, for example, recognizing and locating edible plants and fruits, recognizing poisonous animals and plants, building sleeping nests, efficient and safe climbing and locomotion techniques in the treetops, orientation in the forest, social interactions with conspecifics and other. Likewise, these very young orangutans in particular need intense emotional attention from the human care staff (so-called baby sisters), especially since they are usually traumatized by the often violent death of their mother.
During the rehabilitation process, the young animals go through different learning levels and live in groups, separated by age and stage of development. At the stations, BOS uses small patches of forest as “forest schools”, in which the young orangutans are trained and trained for a life in the wild during the day. Your last stop before they are released for reintroduction are river islands, in which the animals then live almost under natural conditions.
Forest security and management
The basic requirement for the release of orangutans is the existence of forest areas that meet certain minimum criteria:
- Sufficient food crops, e.g. B. wing fruit plants -
- Sufficiently large territory
- Protection against deforestation or slash and burn, generally long-term protection status
- No competition with orangutan populations that may already be living in the protected areas
Forest areas that meet all of these conditions are difficult to find in today's Borneo. Therefore, for a long time it was hardly possible for the BOS Foundation to release orangutans into the wild. In addition, land on a large scale cannot be acquired as private property under Indonesian law, but remains in principle with the state. However, the state grants differently defined usage concessions, i.e. leases the land for a fee, usually for commercial purposes such as logging or the creation of plantations. However, since 2008 it has been possible to acquire a concession specifically for nature conservation purposes (Eco System Restoration Concession). This is legally equivalent to a commercial license and can only be acquired by companies. For this reason, the BOS Foundation founded the company PT Restorasi Habitat Orangutan Indonesia (PT RHOI), which is technically responsible for the release and release areas.
The acquisition of the aforementioned nature conservation concession is planned for 60 to 90 years, but it is comparatively expensive. The first concession area of the BOS Foundation and PT RHOI (Kehje Sewen - "Forest of Orangutans" - in East Kalimantan) cost the equivalent of over one million US dollars. Further reintroduction areas of this type are in preparation. In addition, the BOS Foundation also concludes agreements with private concessionaires and uses reintroduction opportunities in existing state protected areas.
Release
An important aspect of all reintroduction and protection projects is the acceptance of the local population. In addition to information events, training courses are also offered. B. initiated for income-generating measures and the employment of local people as rangers. The actual release of the orangutans in the protective forest is then associated with considerable logistical and financial expenditure. For example, stations for rangers, veterinarians and scientists, including the necessary supply infrastructure, must be provided in the remote release areas.
The great apes that are released into the wild are vaccinated in the wards and subjected to extensive health checks. After being released into the wild, each individual is observed for at least one year, through visual contact and via mini-transmitters implanted in the skin. Between February 2012 and April 2017, 276 animals were released into the wild. Further releases are being planned.
Community development
In parallel to the rehabilitation of orphaned young orangutans and the safeguarding of their habitat, BOS cooperates with local communities. A pilot project was developed and carried out in 2017 together with the village of Mangkatip in central Kalimantan. Components of this project included mapping instructions to substantiate legal usage claims by the village community, training and financing with regard to fire fighting, well construction and the development of possible future sources of income (e.g. rattan cultivation and processing or fish farming). Further projects of this kind are planned. BOS Germany is participating with funding, currently through the Bengo organization .
Afforestation
The approximately 1,800 hectare Samboja Lestari area in East Kalimantan was supported by BOS Germany with a specially developed donation tool: Interested parties could symbolically "purchase" individual square meters of the site online and track the progress of the reforestation via Google Earth . The afforestation has been largely completed since 2011 and the work of the BOS Foundation in Samboja Lestari focuses on conservation measures.
BOS Germany also supports reforestation and renaturation measures by the BOS Foundation in a forest area of over 300,000 hectares (“Mawas” area) in the province of Central Kalimantan, which today still largely consists of tropical peat forest . This area was part of the failed "Mega Rice Project" under dictator Suharto . Apart from afforestation, the renaturation efforts consist in the blockade of drainage channels in order to achieve rewetting of the peat soil.
Environmental education
In order to protect the orangutans and the rainforest, BOS Germany wants to explain how a change in consumer behavior can help protect the orangutans. To this end, BOS started an environmental education project in 2013 in which complex topics such as paper consumption , paper recycling , palm oil problems and rainforest protection are integrated together with Berlin schools . The materials developed and compiled for the project are made available to schools and other educational institutions free of charge in the form of the PaPa-laPapp educational kit.
Individual evidence
- ^ BOS Germany: Statutes BOS Germany eV
- ^ BOS Germany: Association
- ^ BOS Germany: Declaration of self-commitment for the transparent civil society initiative
- ↑ Station Samboja Lestari: Rehabilitation and release into the wild in East Kalimantan (English)
- ^ Station Nyaru Menteng: Rehabilitation and release into the wild in Central Kalimantan
- ^ BOS Germany: Rescue stations
- ↑ Restorasi Habitat Orangutan Indonesia (RHOI): Forest Forever for Orangutans
- ↑ Kehje Sewen: Forests Forever for Orangutans
- ↑ Alternative village development
- ↑ BOS Germany: area Mawas
- ↑ Mawas Conservation Program
- ↑ Environmental education: BOS school project